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Obituary: Prof. Yukio Fukuyama (1928–2014)
Brain & Development 36 (2014) 835–836 www.elsevier.com/locate/braindev
Obituary: Prof. Yukio Fukuyama (1928–2014)
Yukio Fukuyama (1928–2014) [Reproduced with modification from Brain Dev 2004;26:1–4 by permission.] Dr. Yukio Fukuyama, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Women’s Medical University and the most respected child neurologist in the world, passed away in Tokyo on July 17, 2014, at age 86. He was born in a small town in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, and raised in Kumamoto City until the age of 20. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, in 1952. During his medical school days, he became interested in neurology. Dr. Fukuyama was trained at the Department of Pediatrics after graduation and soon began promoting child neurology, which until then had not been well organized worldwide. He founded the Japanese Society of Child Neurology (JSCN) in 1961, the first child neurology society in the world, starting with about 150 members. Within 30 years this membership exceeded 3000. In fact, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology awarded the first board certificate in Neurology with Special Qualifications in Child Neurology in 1969, and the Child Neurology Society was founded with an initial enrollment of 223 members three years later, in 1972. He was appointed http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.braindev.2014.09.009
Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics at Tokyo Women’s Medical College (currently Tokyo Women’s Medical University) in 1967, and showed excellent leadership in the field of child neurology as well as in general pediatrics in Japan. He retired in 1994 and became Director at the Child Neurology Institute in Tokyo. He devoted himself to teaching, clinical practice, and scientific research for 27 years of his professorship. His memoir (Brain Dev 2004;26:1–4) described that he trained 330 physicians, guided 129 degree theses, and published 187 reviews and 661 original articles. His scientific interests and contributions covered broad areas in general pediatrics and child neurology, especially myology and epileptology. His most famous achievement was the discovery of Fukuyama congenital muscular dystrophy in 1960. Its causative gene was mapped at 9q31, which was later found to express the protein fukutin. These achievements were eventually awarded the Asahi Prize and several other domestic and international awards. He also pursued the study of myasthenia gravis in children, notably the seronegative type that is prevalent in Japan. He made a remarkable contribution also to pediatric epileptology. Already in 1959 he had described ictal and interictal symptomatology in 215 cases of infantile spasms, followed by etiologic heterogeneity of prenatal origin, such as tuberous sclerosis, Down syndrome, brain malformations, and phenylketonuria. His report of the ACTH effects on infantile spasms was one of the early studies, only two years after Sorel’s original observation. His low-dose ACTH formula has been widely taken in Japan with fewer side effects than in other countries. The concept of benign infantile convulsions published in 1963 was the first proposal, almost 30 years before Vigevano’s report in 1992. He was an extremely hard worker and a perfectionist. For example, he collected about 1000 epilepsy-related books published since 1945. A collection of this size, according to his own estimation, was unavailable in Medline or any other existing electronic databases as of 2004. He was a fanatic collector of medical literature. The basement of his house is full of medical materials,
836
Obituary / Brain & Development 36 (2014) 835–836
and he stated that this collection was probably one of the richest libraries of child neurology and epileptology in the world. In addition to these medical activities, he always paid attention to international affairs. In 1979 he was elected an Executive Board member of the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA) along with me, and we attended Board meetings at least once a year in various parts of the world. Once, during such a meeting in a small town in the Netherlands, we both began running for exercise on the seashore in the early morning. These occasions stimulated pleasant talks among the ICNA colleagues attending the meeting. He was President of ICNA (1982–1986), and I followed him later as President (1994–1998). During these days, I came to know him more personally than before, although I had been his student since my medical school and pediatric training days. In 1990, as Congress President, he organized the Joint Convention of the 5th International Child Neurology Congress and the 3rd Asian and Oceanian Congress of Child Neurology in Tokyo. I served him as Secretary, and almost 1000 participants attended this meeting, which remains known for its great success in the history of ICNA. One day in the late 1970s he talked to me about publishing a new child neurology journal in English, in addition to the Japanese version, No to Hattatsu, that had been regularly published since 1969. After this personal discussion, he immediately started negotiating with a publishing company and recruiting new editorial board members. Accordingly, he was the founder and first editor-in-chief of this journal, entitled Brain & Development. He held this position for 16 years (1979– 1996). He devoted unbelievable time to this editorial job, carefully reading every paper for publication in detail. For this reason he often had to stay in his office until late at night, and very often he drove me on his way home, after he left work. He once commented that one-third of his working time was spent editing Brain & Development. I became the second editor-in-chief for the next 10 years (1996–2005). Naturally it was a hard task for me to follow him and the high standards he had established, and I could not devote that much time to this job he had, partly because of the introduction of a
computerized editorial system (Elsevier Editorial System) during my term, to make an excuse from my standpoint. Personally, I learned much from him about picking up clinical and scientific problems, collecting materials logically, and even writing the Japanese language for meeting presentations or scientific article preparations. I recall one time in my early medical training. In those days we had to prepare a complete draft for oral presentation in advance for the purpose of intramural preliminary practice. We used to get some comments by professors and seniors for revisions of the drafts. Once there was a meeting outside Tokyo, and the neurology group members headed by Dr. Fukuyama stayed together in a Japanese-style inn the night before the meeting. I did not expect further comments on my next day’s talk. However, unexpectedly, he told me to show my draft to him again for a final review. He inspected the Japanese words with extreme care and made many corrections. This is my unforgettable memory as a lesson not to overlook any minor points, linguistically, logically, and semantically. But even he had some time off work. He often took me to drink coffee and talk about personal topics when he felt he did too much daily clinical practice or paperwork. It was a time for him to relax, and we had simple and easy talks. He was a man of humane character on these occasions. At home he and his wife, Ayako, loved dogs and always kept two or more. Their time with dogs may have been a moment of peace and rest for him during his active years as physician, researcher, organizer, and administrator in his professional career. I hope he has found a peaceful rest for the first time after his long and many years of hard work. Yoshiyuki Suzuki Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan Tel/fax: +81 3 3718 8571 E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]
Obituary: Prof. Yukio Fukuyama (1928–2014)
Yukio Fukuyama (1928–2014) [Reproduced with modification from Brain Dev 2004;26:1–4 by permission.] Dr. Yukio Fukuyama, Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Women’s Medical University and the most respected child neurologist in the world, passed away in Tokyo on July 17, 2014, at age 86. He was born in a small town in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, and raised in Kumamoto City until the age of 20. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, in 1952. During his medical school days, he became interested in neurology. Dr. Fukuyama was trained at the Department of Pediatrics after graduation and soon began promoting child neurology, which until then had not been well organized worldwide. He founded the Japanese Society of Child Neurology (JSCN) in 1961, the first child neurology society in the world, starting with about 150 members. Within 30 years this membership exceeded 3000. In fact, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology awarded the first board certificate in Neurology with Special Qualifications in Child Neurology in 1969, and the Child Neurology Society was founded with an initial enrollment of 223 members three years later, in 1972. He was appointed http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.braindev.2014.09.009
Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics at Tokyo Women’s Medical College (currently Tokyo Women’s Medical University) in 1967, and showed excellent leadership in the field of child neurology as well as in general pediatrics in Japan. He retired in 1994 and became Director at the Child Neurology Institute in Tokyo. He devoted himself to teaching, clinical practice, and scientific research for 27 years of his professorship. His memoir (Brain Dev 2004;26:1–4) described that he trained 330 physicians, guided 129 degree theses, and published 187 reviews and 661 original articles. His scientific interests and contributions covered broad areas in general pediatrics and child neurology, especially myology and epileptology. His most famous achievement was the discovery of Fukuyama congenital muscular dystrophy in 1960. Its causative gene was mapped at 9q31, which was later found to express the protein fukutin. These achievements were eventually awarded the Asahi Prize and several other domestic and international awards. He also pursued the study of myasthenia gravis in children, notably the seronegative type that is prevalent in Japan. He made a remarkable contribution also to pediatric epileptology. Already in 1959 he had described ictal and interictal symptomatology in 215 cases of infantile spasms, followed by etiologic heterogeneity of prenatal origin, such as tuberous sclerosis, Down syndrome, brain malformations, and phenylketonuria. His report of the ACTH effects on infantile spasms was one of the early studies, only two years after Sorel’s original observation. His low-dose ACTH formula has been widely taken in Japan with fewer side effects than in other countries. The concept of benign infantile convulsions published in 1963 was the first proposal, almost 30 years before Vigevano’s report in 1992. He was an extremely hard worker and a perfectionist. For example, he collected about 1000 epilepsy-related books published since 1945. A collection of this size, according to his own estimation, was unavailable in Medline or any other existing electronic databases as of 2004. He was a fanatic collector of medical literature. The basement of his house is full of medical materials,
836
Obituary / Brain & Development 36 (2014) 835–836
and he stated that this collection was probably one of the richest libraries of child neurology and epileptology in the world. In addition to these medical activities, he always paid attention to international affairs. In 1979 he was elected an Executive Board member of the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA) along with me, and we attended Board meetings at least once a year in various parts of the world. Once, during such a meeting in a small town in the Netherlands, we both began running for exercise on the seashore in the early morning. These occasions stimulated pleasant talks among the ICNA colleagues attending the meeting. He was President of ICNA (1982–1986), and I followed him later as President (1994–1998). During these days, I came to know him more personally than before, although I had been his student since my medical school and pediatric training days. In 1990, as Congress President, he organized the Joint Convention of the 5th International Child Neurology Congress and the 3rd Asian and Oceanian Congress of Child Neurology in Tokyo. I served him as Secretary, and almost 1000 participants attended this meeting, which remains known for its great success in the history of ICNA. One day in the late 1970s he talked to me about publishing a new child neurology journal in English, in addition to the Japanese version, No to Hattatsu, that had been regularly published since 1969. After this personal discussion, he immediately started negotiating with a publishing company and recruiting new editorial board members. Accordingly, he was the founder and first editor-in-chief of this journal, entitled Brain & Development. He held this position for 16 years (1979– 1996). He devoted unbelievable time to this editorial job, carefully reading every paper for publication in detail. For this reason he often had to stay in his office until late at night, and very often he drove me on his way home, after he left work. He once commented that one-third of his working time was spent editing Brain & Development. I became the second editor-in-chief for the next 10 years (1996–2005). Naturally it was a hard task for me to follow him and the high standards he had established, and I could not devote that much time to this job he had, partly because of the introduction of a
computerized editorial system (Elsevier Editorial System) during my term, to make an excuse from my standpoint. Personally, I learned much from him about picking up clinical and scientific problems, collecting materials logically, and even writing the Japanese language for meeting presentations or scientific article preparations. I recall one time in my early medical training. In those days we had to prepare a complete draft for oral presentation in advance for the purpose of intramural preliminary practice. We used to get some comments by professors and seniors for revisions of the drafts. Once there was a meeting outside Tokyo, and the neurology group members headed by Dr. Fukuyama stayed together in a Japanese-style inn the night before the meeting. I did not expect further comments on my next day’s talk. However, unexpectedly, he told me to show my draft to him again for a final review. He inspected the Japanese words with extreme care and made many corrections. This is my unforgettable memory as a lesson not to overlook any minor points, linguistically, logically, and semantically. But even he had some time off work. He often took me to drink coffee and talk about personal topics when he felt he did too much daily clinical practice or paperwork. It was a time for him to relax, and we had simple and easy talks. He was a man of humane character on these occasions. At home he and his wife, Ayako, loved dogs and always kept two or more. Their time with dogs may have been a moment of peace and rest for him during his active years as physician, researcher, organizer, and administrator in his professional career. I hope he has found a peaceful rest for the first time after his long and many years of hard work. Yoshiyuki Suzuki Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Japan Tel/fax: +81 3 3718 8571 E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]